Face Off Cycle 8- A4 & Scores

3rd Place

Nicole Riley

ASSIGNMENT 4: HERITAGE WITH COLOR POP

African Heritage

This may be one of my fav edits for this.

You are so pretty, Nicole. You look elegant in this shot and a little humble. Your pose and expression make me think of someone who is shy – not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing for the fashion aspect of things. You are styled beautifully and your team photographed you in an excellent location. Great work overall.


Lady Riley, you look very pretty in this photo. You chose a very subtle but flattering face paint, which is no easy thing to do. Your bright red outfit ensures that most attention stays on you, while the bright blue sky adds a softer touch to the photo. Kudos to your hairdresser for the lovely hairstyle. My only, minor qualm with the photo is the background in its entirety. I feel as if I have seen this many times before, elephants and the open plain when it comes to displaying Africa. It is such a big continent with varying lands and sites, I'd like to have seen the background that that was more out of the box.

I was inspired by models looks of course, but my own heritage. Fun fact: I also have Native American roots.

Anywhoo, I wanted to do something really pretty and classy. I wanted her to be holding something too. At first, I was going do a spear, but that sound tasteless and stereotypical. lol So I chose something more practical. I made a pose for the water jug thingy and styled her with some pretty neat cc. I edited her necklace to add more color. It was gold originally. Then I added some tasteful face paint to give a little something special.

The background is a mash-up of two different backgrounds. The sky is one piece and the ground is another. The sky in the ground part of the photo was so dreary and I really wanted the elephants, so I made it work. The birds and the sun were edited in. I also moved one elephant over.

I know Gege thought the background was too typical and expected, but I chose that background for a personal reason I didn't share. My grandmother really loves elephants. She has statues of them all over the house. Them and owls. I did it in honor of her kind of. lol Other than that, I should have chosen something different. Oh well.

Nevertheless, I'm really proud of this photo. I feel like my editing is getting better.

The next assignment was to do a goddess and I did it today really quickly while my computer let me. I had dropped out and everything, but I was like WAIT!!!! lol Hopefully they count me into scores and I can continue doing this.